Does Santa Need Plastic Surgery?
Dr. Neavin tackles the true mystery of Saint Nicholas using the scientific method (or something like that).
Does Santa need plastic surgery after a trip around the world after eating all of those cookies? This is a profound question that will yield some surprising statistics, assumptions, and conclusions.
The facts
Approximately 108 million families worldwide celebrate Christmas every year. If Santa ate on average 1.5 cookies per household and a cookie has on average 150 calories, Santa is looking to take-in throughout his worldwide trip 24,300,000,000, or over 24 billion calories! And this doesn’t even include the milk!
If a pound of fat is created by 3,500 calories (kilocalories to me more precise), then Santa is looking to put on over 6,900 pounds overnight! So how does Santa do it? How does Jolly Old Saint Nicholas stay so plump yet live so long? While we may never know his secrets to longevity, we can make some assumptions on what we do know.
The assumptions
For one, he probably doesn’t eat the estimated 162,000,000 cookies (one hundred and sixty two million). In reality, he probably doesn’t eat any. High sugary foods such as cookies inevitably lead to a sugar crash and the last thing Santa needs 25,000 miles in the sky is mental fatigue. So who eats all the cookies? Reindeer? I doubt it. And the elves are all home sleeping after working day and night for the last week.
The conclusion
The most likely munchers? Parents! They just can’t help themselves. While the kids are tucked away, they’re likely sneaking downstairs for a bedtime snack. And this just might be a good thing. There could be no possible way Santa can operate a sleigh while weighing 6900 pounds. Unless, of course, he gets liposuction upon his return! Yes! That is it! Santa is a plastic surgery addict!
Case solved!
Dr. Tim Neavin is a board-certified plastic surgeon located in Beverly Hills, California.
